THE UNCANNY VALLEY

“The body of the user in a virtual environment is a complex structure, a subject-object…it is a quasi-cyborg body…a body that translates itself into an eminently active spectral entity.”
—Roberto Diodato, The Aesthetics of the Virtual

human damns us by itserrorof no error, even this palpableme in my palm. I belong

to the darkness ofthe world—its haloing street-lights, the dog

barking to tell methereare stilldistances I can cross

with my feet, myhopelike a blisteron my heel, as I try

to find my waybackto the hotel. Howblood the blood

of the metaphor,how stillthe heart that’s beatenin fear.

Emilia Phillips is the author of two poetry collections from the University of Akron Press, Signaletics (2013) and Groundspeed (2016), and three chapbooks, most recently Beneath the Ice Fish Like Souls Look Alike (Bull City Press, 2015). Her poems and lyric essays appear widely in literary publications including Agni, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and elsewhere. She’s an assistant professor in the MFA Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her third book, Empty Clip, will be published by the University of Akron Press Spring 2018.